To get a better understanding of where Utah and Tulsa stand, I thought it would be best to compare both team's schedule. This should at least give a foundation for the argument of which team is better, or if anything adds more baseless information to which team has a better shot at winning the Armed Forces Bowl.
Tulsa's schedule
| W/L | Opponent | Score | Opponent Record | |
| W | Stephen F. Austin | 45-7 | 4-7 | |
| L | BYU | 24-49 | 10-2 | |
| W | North Texas | 28-3 | 3-9 | |
| W | Navy | 24-23 | 9-3 | |
| W | Southern Miss | 20-6 | 8-5 | |
| W | East Carolina | 31-10 | 7-5 | |
| W | Memphis | 35-14 | 2-10 | |
| W | UTEP | 30-20 | 5-7 | |
| L | Houston | 10-27 | 10-3 | |
| L | SMU | 34-24 | 6-6 | |
| W | Tulane | 38-3 | 4-8 |
It's interesting to note Tulsa did not play once BCS team this season and their toughest out of conference games were against BYU and Navy -- which also happens to be their most impressive victory of the season. The combined record of Tulsa's opponents is 68-65, but the combined record against teams Tulsa beat is only 42-54.
Utah's schedule
| W/L | Opponent | Score | Opponent Record |
| L | UCLA | 10-31 | 7-5 |
| W | NAU | 45-7 | 6-5 |
| W | USU | 48-0 | 1-11 |
| W | SDSU | 38-7 | 3-9 |
| L | Boise State | 3-36 | 12-0 |
| W | TCU | 20-7 | 10-2 |
| L | Wyoming | 15-31 | 6-6 |
| L | New Mexico | 31-34 | 6-6 |
| W | UNLV | 45-23 | 2-10 |
| W | CSU | 35-22 | 4-8 |
| W | Air Force | 17-14 | 4-8 |
| L | BYU | 31-33 | 10-2 |
The Utes played one team from a BCS conference, UCLA, a team that blew them out. Their combined opponent's record this season is 71-72. While Utah's opponents have more wins than Tulsa's, their opponents' combined record is above .500, Utah's isn't. It isn't much better if you just compare the combined record of each team Utah beat. That's an embarrassingly low of 30-53. A winning percentage of just .361%, compare that to Tulsa's wins, which is .437, and you can see they've had more impressive wins than the Utes. Of course Utah's biggest win the of the season compares well to Tulsa's, a 20-7 victory over TCU.
What does this all mean? Well the Utes pretty much rolled over every team with a bad record, in fact, all of their losses came to a team with 6 or more wins. Yet against good competition -- BYU, Boise State and UCLA -- the Utes faltered. Though I will note the Utes had a much stronger finish than Tulsa, who lost 2 of their final 3, while the Utes won 2 of their final 3. Their lone loss coming as time expired against BYU -- who defeated Tulsa 49-24.
If the Utes can get a victory against Tulsa, it'll be an impressive one to add to a season filled with minimal impressive wins. Tulsa on the other hand probably won't gain much with a victory over a 7-5 Utah team...except maybe a top-25 finish.